The deadly false hope of German cancer clinics, part 2: Metastasizing to Australia and beyond

Yesterday, I wrote about alternative medicine clinics in Germany that offer a combination of alternative cancer cures plus experimental therapeutics administered improperly outside the auspices of a clinical trial. In particular, I discussed two cases. The first was British actress Leah Bracknell, who is raising money to go to one of these alternative cancer clinics to treat her stage IV lung cancer. the second was a British woman named Pauline Gahan, who was diagnosed with metastatic stomach cancer and has thus far spent £300,000 for a combination of vitamin infusions, “detox,” and Keytruda (generic name: pembrolizumab). This is a drug belonging to a new class of promising anticancer therapies known as immune checkpoint inhibitors. It’s FDA-approved for some cancers, but hasn’t yet been shown to be effective against stomach cancer, although there is one phase I trial that is promising and thought to be sufficient evidence to justify phase II and III trials. None of this stopped the clinic to which both Bracknell and Gahan traveled, the Hallwang Private Oncology Clinic.

One thing I noticed about the Hallwang Private Oncology Clinic when I wrote about it is that nowhere did it list the doctors who own and operate it or who consult there. I did find one name, Dr. Jens Nolting, mentioned on patient discussion boards as working at Hallwang. The lack of mention of who runs the clinic and who practices there was an enormous red flag to me, I think for obvious reasons. Fortunately, a reader with more knowledge than I and thus a better idea of what to Google for, pointed me in the right direction. So I thought I’d do a follow-up post and then segue to a report that aired on Australian TV on alternative medicine for cancer there to show the consequences of clinics like this, which are, unfortunately, a problem in many advanced countries. Thus, this post might be a bit “odds and ends”-ish, but it’s a topic that’s been of intense interest to me ever since I discovered the depths of alternative medicine applied to cancer, and I didn’t want to leave last week’s post, in essence, unfinished. Also, there is at least one interesting connection that I hadn’t realized as I wrote my post yesterday.

Ursula Jacobs and Farrah Fawcett

The key bit of information that I didn’t know when searching for who owns Hallwang Private Oncology Clinic was that it used to be known as the Private Clinic of Dr Ursula Jacob, a name change that occurred in 2014. She also apparently has a clinic known as the Day Clinic for Prevention and Regeneration. Her CV shows an early career that appeared rather conventional. She studied medicine at the Semmelweis University in Budapest from 1985-1991, trained in general medicine and family practice from 1991-1995. Then things went wrong, as she took a job at Leonardis Klinik in Kornwestheim in internal medicine and hematology from 1995-2000, becoming senior physician there in 1997. You might recall that Leonardis Klinik was—apparently it’s closed now—one of the premiere German alternative cancer clinics.

In fact, the Leonardis Klinik sounded very familiar to me, as did the name Ursula Jacob. I thought and thought, trying to remember, and then I decided to see if I’ve ever written about either before, either here or at my not-so-super-secret other blog. Guess what? Back in 2009, Dr. Ursula Jacob, who by then had started working at another German alternative cancer clinic, Klinik-Alpenpark, treated Farrah Fawcett with “vitamin preparations that she says boost the immune system.” She was also treated at Leonardis Klinik. She also underwent treatment that is not alternative but was probably not appropriate for her, chemoembolization.

Towards the end of her life, Fawcett became disillusioned with the German alternative medicine clinics that she had trusted, as shown in a documentary that she made about her cancer diagnosis and treatment, Farrah’s Story. As I’ve described before, Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer. She underwent what sounds like the standard chemoradiation protocol known as the Nigro Protocol. Unfortunately, she recurred locally at the anus, and the only treatment for a local recurrence of anal cancer after the Nigro Protocol is an operation known as an abdominoperineal resection (APR), in which the rectum and anus are removed, the hole sewn shut, and the patient left with a permanent colostomy. Not surprisingly, Fawcett didn’t want that. (No one does.) Unfortunately, she heard the siren call of the German alternative cancer clinics, which were doing the same thing then as they are now, combining experimental treatments with pure quackery:

Instead, she opted to put herself under the care of two German specialists, Professor Thomas Vogl and Dr Ursula Jacob.

Mrs Stewart said: ‘She believed it would be less drastic.’

Professor Vogl, 50, who practises in Frankfurt, offers cancer patients a treatment called chemoembolisation, during which chemicals are injected directly into organs at a cost of £3,500 a session.

During filming, Miss Fawcett was shown groaning and writhing in pain as a long needle was thrust into her liver by Professor Vogl.

She also underwent a surgical procedure called laser ablation, which heats up the tumour to around 38C (100F) to destroy cancer cells.

Professor Vogl later assured Miss Fawcett that all the ‘active tumours’ had been removed, while Dr Jacob, who uses vitamins to boost the immune system at her Alpenpark Clinic in the Bavarian Alps, claimed it was a ‘miracle’.

However, just a few weeks later, Miss Fawcett underwent a scan that showed the original tumour was larger than ever and that the cancer had spread to her liver.

Chemoembolization is a legitimate treatment for liver tumors, as is laser ablation. Basically, chemoembolization involves injecting chemotherapy and small synthetic particles directly into the hepatic artery. The chemotherapy attacks the cancer, and the particles embolize (travel along the artery) until they lodge and block the blood flow to the tumor. Similarly, this laser ablation sounds like nothing more than a fancy version of thermal ablation of tumors that uses laser instead of radiofrequency waves to generate the heat. Although these treatments can be palliative, it is very uncommon for them to be curative; so it is not at all surprising that Fawcett’s tumors came roaring back. As for the “immune boosting vitamins” administered by Dr. Jacob, there’s no good evidence that such treatments do anything at all other than to produce expensive urine.

I asked Dr. Jacob where Farrah went wrong in her cancer treatment. She replied that when Farrah returned to the United States, she went back to receiving high-dose chemotherapy.

Dr. Jacob doesn’t like chemo because it’s so toxic. If she uses chemo at all, she only uses it in low doses — about one tenth of the amount that conventional cancer doctors give. And she sometimes recommends chemo-embolization, as she did in Farrah’s case.

Dr. Jacob considers chemo a bad idea unless a chemo sensitivity test is used to match a patient’s cancer cells to the chemotherapy drug that’s most likely to kill them. The test indicates that a specific kind of chemo will work, and thereby avoids the hit-or-miss approach of conventional cancer doctors, who will administer one chemotherapy drug after another (in high doses, of course), hoping to find one that works.

If a chemo sensitivity test shows that no chemo is likely to work against a particular cancer, Dr. Jacob says NO chemo should be used.

Chemosensitivity tests of the sort that Dr. Jacob advocates are not generally used because their predictive value has not been validated and when tested, in general has not been very good. These sorts of tests are very old, dating back almost to the dawn of chemotherapy for cancer. That’s why the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) concluded in 2011 that in vitro chemosensitivity testing has promise but should only be used as part of clinical trials, the same conclusion it came to in 2004. Moreover, given the advances in genomic testing, chemosensitivity testing is downright quaint and difficult to do.

Dr. Jacob also reminded me about another factor that contributed to Farrah’s death: the stress of a family crisis. During her struggle against cancer, Farrah’s 25-year-old son, Redmond, got in trouble with the law. He was put behind bars on April 5, 2009, two months before she died, for a drug offense.

Unfortunately, Farrah had a weakness for Coca-Cola, which is jam-packed with sugar. Coke was Farrah’s favorite beverage, as her best friend Alana Stewart noted in her diary entry for June 1, 2007. Even in the midst of her cancer treatments, Farrah couldn’t stop drinking Coca-Cola. Believe it or not, each 12-ounce Coke contains an astounding 10 cubes of sugar! That’s right. Drinking one Coke is like eating 10 sugar cubes.

Farrah’s German medical team is not to blame for her death. In fact, they helped Farrah extend her life and gave her a better quality of life. My reporting points to at least three factors beyond the control of Farrah’s German doctors that contributed to Farrah’s death:

Of course, Farrah Fawcett’s death was not the fault of alternative medicine or the doctors who administer it. Deaths like hers never are. The bottom line is that, unfortunately, Farrah Fawcett’s best chance of surviving her cancer was to undergo APR. It’s a horrible choice. No one wants a permanent colostomy, but I’ve taken care of a number of patients over the years who’ve had one. It is quite possible to live a fulfilling life with one. Once Fawcett declined that option, her odds of surviving her cancer plummeted dramatically. It was possible that local ablation of the tumor might have resulted in long term survival, but highly unlikely. The die was cast when Fawcett refused surgery.

Dr. Ursula Jacob today

So what is Dr. Jacob up to today? At her (apparently other) clinic’s website, she advertises a fairly standard variety of alternative medicine quackery (but I repeat myself), including detoxification and intestinal cleaning:

We offer individually designed examinations of the stool from which we can build an individual programme of detoxification, working on the colon and lymphatic system in order to repair the damaged systems and restore balance to the flora in the gut.

We’re talking enemas, of course. I’ve yet to see an “intestinal cleaning” and “detoxification” protocol that doesn’t involve enemas, coffee or saline.

Intermittent Hypoxia (sometimes known as ”Altitude Training”) is used to improve oxygen supply to the cells which can regenerate the brain and the body, used together with specific amino acids, the overall cell energy can be improved. This leads to better performance and a natural ”anti-aging”.

This is utter woo babble (like techno-babble in Star Trek, just with woo).

We carry out blood tests that can show how severely the individual systems are damaged from which we devise therapeutic treatment plans. We work with natural anti-inflammatory and immune complex-depleting substances, photopheresis and regenerative therapies.

Reflexology, is a therapy involving the physical act of applying pressure to the feet with specific thumb, finger, and hand techniques without the use of oil or lotion. It is based on stimulating reflex areas that relate to the internal organs of the body which can improve the circulation, relieve stress and stimulate self-healing processes.

Or, as I like to call it, a foot massage with delusions of grandeur.

I think you get the idea. These German alternative medicine cancer clinics thrive based on the desperation of cancer patients with the means to travel to Germany or at least the means to raise the large sums of money required to travel to Germany and be treated at these clinics. Hallwang, run by Dr. Ursula Jacob, is just one of them.

Dr. Asir Kopic appears to be an oncologist, and has a website. That website lists him as the chief physician of Hallwang from 2012-2014, but not beyond. So it’s not clear whether he still practices at Hallwang. It is, of course, quite possible that he still consults at Hallwang, but now maintains his own Stuttgart private practice with what appears to be his wife, Dr. Emina Kopic, who is listed at the same website as an “orthomolecular therapist.” Remember that “orthomolecular medicine” is a form of quackery popularized by Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. The high dose vitamin C treatments that he advocated to treat everything from cancer to the common cold are basically part of orthomolecular medicine, which advocates superdoses of various nutrients to treat diseases. As I like to put it, in orthomolecular medicine, if some is good, more is always better.

I’ll get to Dr. Greg Schwarz in a minute. First, however, I can’t resist mentioning that my commenter pointed out that the website for the Hallwang Private Oncology Clinic is registered under the name of Dr Albert Schmierer, who is CEO of “Dr Zinsser Pharmaceuticals.” He’s described thusly:

Dr. Albert Schmierer is one of the leading German researchers in the field of cell mitochondrial as well as homeopathic treatments with a keen interest in anti-ageing medicine, including cell therapy with the emphasis in cell mitochondrial treatment for rejuvenation, regeneration and fighting premature ageing. He is also the chief pharmacist for mitochondrial and homeopathic therapy at the Private Hospital Dr Ursula Jacob GmbH as well as the owner and CEO of Dr Zinsser Pharmaceuticals.

ZÉLL-V started its operations in 2007 with the mission to enable every individual to enjoy a healthy, vibrant, beautiful and quality life. As the process of ageing remains untreatable with conventional medicine, ZÉLL-V aims to defy ageing by harnessing the body’s own healing and revitalising power through cellular therapy.

With this, ZÉLL-V has partnered with international medical experts to develop an exclusive formulation – the most advanced cellular therapy to activate cellular repair and regeneration through the use of cutting-edge biotechnology.

Obviously, this is more woo babble, but what does it mean, if anything? It means “live cell therapy,” which, translated, basically means grinding up animal glands and injecting them:

Cellular therapy is a complete biological treatment using fresh cells or cell factors to stimulate intra-cellular repair mechanisms and cell rejuvenation and regeneration, thereby slowing down the natural process of ageing and counteracting chronic degenerative diseases.

Cellular therapy was discovered by Professor Dr Niehans by chance in 1931 when he saved a woman writhing with convulsions after an operation on her thyroid gland by injecting her with a suspension of animal parathyroid glands – an unknown treatment at that time.

The woman went on to live another 30 years, well into her 90s. Later, at his clinic in Montreaux, Switzerland, Professor Dr Niehans went on to administer live cell injections to thousands and thousands of patients, including many of the crowned heads, presidents, Pope Pius XII and numerous Hollywood stars.

Today, ZÉLL-V cellular therapy is widely used across the globe. Possessing limitless potential to restore people’s health, youth and quality of life, cellular therapy is touted as the future of medicine and health maintenance.

The example of Paul Niehans injecting parathyroid glands is a highly dubious story. It’s not that it’s all that implausible on one level. After all, the hormone made by parathyroid glands (parathormone or parathyroid hormone, abbreviated PTH) is critical for regulating calcium levels in the blood. Indeed, severe hypocalcemia (low calcium) is a known complication of total thyroidectomy because the parathyroid glands are intimately associated with the thyroid gland. If all four of them are injured or accidentally removed with the thyroid, potentially fatal hypoparathyroidism can result. That’s why a common practice is to remove one or more of the parathyroids, mince them, and implant them into a skeletal muscle, a practice known as parathyroid autotransplantation. The cells survive, thanks to the blood supply of the muscle, and keep producing parathormone. The story above is, of course, nonsense, as a quick look at even Wikipedia will tell you, as the function of the parathyroid glands was known as 1908.

In any case, live cell therapy is basically a quack treatment based on the concept that there is some sort of “essence” in various animal cells that can rejuvenate and repair human tissue, as described here:

In order for this to happen, ZÉLL-V Cellular Therapy supplies the human body with young and active cellular material obtained from sheep embryonic or early foetal cells and placenta. These active cellular materials are young and full of vitality, as such, once taken into the body, they are able to imprint their vigour upon the body’s weak and old cells, thereby ‘teaching’ them to regenerate themselves, resulting in an overall improvement and restoration of our bodily systems.

Even more ridiculously, these animal organs and glands are often produced in pill form, to be consumed rather than injected, so that, even if there were something in the cells that could affect human physiology, chances are that it would be destroyed by the digestive tract. Quackwatch, of course, has an excellent discussion of live cell therapy and why it is quackery. It’s also not safe. There have been reports of fatal immunological reactions, gangrene at the site of injection of sheep cells, and other problems.

So, regardless if all of the doctors I’ve discussed up to now still practice at Hallwang, there is no doubt that, between Dr. Jacob and Dr. Schmierer, Hallwang Private Oncology Clinic still delivers the quackery.

The Australian connection

But wait. I’ve overlooked someone. Actually, no, I haven’t. What I did notice in my searches is that Dr. Greg Schwarz is no longer at Hallwang Private Oncology Clinic. In fact, he’s moved to Australia to join Gore Street Medical in South Hobart, where he is described as having “returned from working at a specialised cancer centre in Germany,” bringing “his expertise in nutritional medicine and environmental medicine to Gore St Medical” as well as this:

I was particularly amused by the woo babble in this video describing bioresonance:

Yep, it’s all about the “vibrations,” man. Basically, a machine determines the “bioenergetic” resonance of a compound suspected of causing problems and then determines if that’s what’s causing a patient’s symptoms. Yes, it’s basically a machine that goes ping, as in an expensive machine that doesn’t really do anything useful but sure looks impressive to the rubes.

In the end, the cancer quackery of the German alternative cancer clinics has produced a small metastasis to Australia in the form of Dr. Schwarz. How Gore Street Medical contributes to the problem is described in an excellent short report that aired a couple of weeks ago on Australia’s Science Channel:

As the Australian report above points out, conventional medical treatments must be supported with science and evidence from randomized clinical trials. As I pointed out yesterday, clinics like Hallwang rarely, if ever, publish their results, but that doesn’t stop them from taking advantage of the desperation of cancer patients by offering them false hope at a very high price.

I used to work some with a lab that was trying to grow replacement anuses. You need nerve and blood, not just muscle to grow. Kahlil Bitar was a beautiful person, as were many in his lab. Too bad they felt they needed to leave my fair city for Wake Forest, but they have my admiration and best wishes. Organogenesis is cool, and important.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21463628 is a paper, and the lay press reported on it quite a bit too.

What does amaze me is the extreme persistence, in all subfields of woo, in vitalism. Vitalism, occasionally with humoral theory to the point where I’d not be surprised to find miasma theory added (well, there is aromatherapy).
These charlatans might as well wear funny robes and wave magic wands.
As everyone with more than three operational brain cells has come to realize, magic doesn’t exist, which leads me to wonder as to what kind of person is it that essentially steals from the dying and the families of the dying, while giving false hope or worse, a good solid shove into the grave.
Seriously, I’ve met actual, real life terrorists, complete with bombing markets filled with women and children and those seem a whole lot less monstrous than these people!

@rork, while a political joke is tempting, the reality of growing such complex tissues is a daunting prospect indeed.
We’ve still to get a real handle on the full cellular signaling processes in growing tissues and organs.
Growing an anus, daunting upon daunting, one also requires lymphatic tissue, mucosa, multiple nerve types, circulatory system vessels and more.
Honestly, I suspect that growing a kidney or heart would be simple in comparison.
Although, some antigens are shared in every external OS in the body…

That’d take some very serious processing to understand.
A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate—and yet I will design it for you. A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called… the Earth. 😉

Yeah, cellular differentiation signalling can indeed be that complicated.

From what I’m seeing, the surgeon screwed up operating on the thyroid and managed to destroy the parathyroid glands.
I can see one or two, especially when performing a lobotomy on the thyroid, but all flipping four?!

Weirdness ensues, as one site “oddly” heavily speaking in his favor (and of course, selling cell preparations and cell therapy), mentions the alleged cure for decades (something odd, as live bovine cells tend to be rejected), yet the Wikipedia article has cited information where that method fails to work (which reflects the biology).

Then it developed sort of teeth-like little raspy in-curving hooks and started eating. He thought this was cute at first and built an act around it, but the as*hole would eat its way through his pants and start talking on the street, shouting out it wanted equal rights.

— William S. Bourroghs, The Man Who Taught His As*hole To Talk

Anyways, couldn’t they just cut the anuses out of aborted fetus and grow one from that, Wzrd1 #4?

@sullenbode #9, as the anus is relatively late in development in a fetus, that’s a non-question, add in tissue typing issues present in adults and the fact that abortions are typically accomplished early in pregnancy via suctioning of the embryo and placenta, no.

So, has news of the rigged election reached your sunny locale? We’ve just elected a conspiracy theorist who might definitely be a threat to public health–those YUGE needles shot into those tiny babies (the ones who aren’t ripped limb from limb just before birth, anyway) and don’t forget the hoax of climate change!

the right molecule, in the right place, in the right amount to achieve a therapeutic or nutritional effect, usually starting with removals. Pauling’s papers started with reductions, in the 1950s. 1940s if you count his kidney treatment.

The illiterate or hearsay MDs etc just keep repeating and spreading their ignorance or these lies about “mega only”. This misinformed fascination with higher dose vitamins totally ignores what they write, and say in person:

They actually start off on removal of deletrious substances including refined sugar, bad fats (much more restrictive), smoking, etc in much stronger terms than most maimstream doctors. Their specification of nutrients tries to follow science literature, witness tremendous reduction in preformed vitamin A and consideration of several caretenoids..

Also there is a much greater focus on the specific molecular entity than in the maimstream, and their co-factors or required adjuncts. e.g. d-tocopherols with coQ10 vs racemic mixtures of so-called d,l – alpha tocopheryl esters, or D3 instead of D2, vitamin K2 instead of K1 or K3.
———————–

Lemee give you two hints.
1: When an alleged health care professional says one thing, yet does another, I lost trust entirely in that alleged professional. It’s a sure sign of quackery.

2: When you refer to any health care professional as a general profession as “maimstream”, you prove yourself an idiot.
It’s far better to remain silent and be thought the fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

the right molecule, in the right place, in the right amount to achieve a therapeutic or nutritional effect, usually starting with removals. Pauling’s papers started with reductions, in the 1950s. 1940s if you count his kidney treatment.

I’m quite familiar with what orthomolecular advocates claim. In practice what they do tends to be megasupplementation of vitamins, such as high dose vitamin C treatments for a variety of diseases.

Now, now. It’s what they *say* that counts, not what they actually *do* (or more accurately, don’t).
Such as provide evidence to support their pet theories that they then attempt to set free to annoy the neighborhood.

Which makes them as trustworthy as our old physician, a DO, who used to write in the EHR that he prescribed opoiods, but entirely failed to write a prescription for the same.
With that and his ignoring advancing gallstone disease, we found a physician who actually did what they said.
After all, the first speaks to possible diversion of opoiods and the second, to competence.

Very sad… I would point out that as a practicing oncologist (and one who follows the NCCN guidelines as the bible!) I have given a few patients PD-1 inhibitors for off label cancers. However, we don’t charge out of pocket, but rather obtain them for compassionate use from the manufacturer or see if insurance will cover them. If you have failed the up front options and have no targeted options available… for many cancers, chemo offers only a few short months of benefit at best with a substantial toxicity profile. We’ve seen some amazing responses with these agents. You have to brief the patient carefully and make sure they understand why you are using the agent, the unknowns, and the potential side effects.

Chemotherapy sensitivity assays are just not reliable. I’m hopeful the newer profiles that seek targets based on a molecular profile will be more helpful… but it is a work in progress.

I am curious, albeit for a totally off topic reason, how you manage to convince an insurance company to cover a drug that isn’t covered.
My wife has a need for some osteoporosis medications, the most effective not being covered.

@ Wzrd1 – the process of getting a drug for off label usage is spotty at best. Some insurance plans can be talked into it pretty easily, if not we can occasionally get it supplied by the manufacturer. With the increasing expense of the drugs, it is much harder to do this today than it was 5-10 years ago.

So, Orac a healthy dose of scepticism is to be encouraged. Indeed I too was sceptical when I sourced Hallwang for my mother but having had first hand experience I feel that I can now make a judgement on it (unlike yourself). Our oncologist in the U.K. is the Clinical Director of Medical Oncology at The Christie Hospital in Manchester. When we told him of our idea to travel to Germany he too was sceptical and concerned for Mum’s welfare. However after a couple of visits and treatments here we went back to see him in Manchester. After picking his jaw up off the floor (not only because Mum had regained the ability to walk and looked in fantastic health but also because she was simply still alive) we showed him the treatments she had been receiving. He looked at the treatment plan with a bitterly disappointed look and told us that he has an academic background in immunology and the treatments Mum was getting in germany were exactly what he would love to be able to treat her with if his hands weren’t tied.

A fellow oncologist at the Christie told us that the type of treatment Mum has been receiving in Germany will be very much the norm in 5-10 years in countries like the U.K.

Yes it is expensive but what price on life. Mum was given about 12 weeks to live in May last year and since starting at Hallwang she has had an extremely good quality of life. She is now able to do anything she could do before cancer and you wouldn’t know she had it. In June last year Mum couldn’t walk, shower or dress herself. We had to lift her up in bed just so she could have a sip of water. Now she’s just spent a Christmas that shouldn’t have been possible with all her family around her. She’s returned to work part-time and she’s eating well and exercising. Had she remained in the U.K. for conventional cancer treatment instead of going to Germany she would have been long gone by now.

Since commencing treatment at the Hallwang Mum’s cancer has gone from her stomach (the primary tumour), her oesophagus, her lungs and her lymph nodes. Dr Nolting is working on shifting the last remaining stubborn tumours in her liver that have shrunk to a fraction of the size they used to be.

Dr Nolting and the Hallwang never once gave us false hope. Never once did they promise anything, no cure, no remission. They told us that the immunotherapy treatments they provide work for some people and not for others and that the responses vary from mild to extreme. Having personally spoken with Dr Nolting for many hours now I can assure you that he is by far the most educated cancer specialist we have consulted during Mum’s journey. He has an integrative approach to cancer treatment that is refreshing. Unlike the oncologists in the U.K. who tend to be dismissive of anything non conventional (chemo, radio and surgery and these 3 have served us well in the fight against cancer thus far haven’t they) he is extremely knowledgeable about many other alternative and complementary cancer treatments. Not that he advocates them all. Predominantly though all of the patients at Hallwang are receiving immunotherapy.

If you’d like to point out the quackery in the following list of treatments Mum has been receiving at Hallwang I will gladly debate them with you. I’m certainly no expert although I do have a basic knowledge as I’ve got a pharmacology degree from my time at uni l, albeit 20 years ago now:

In addition to these treatments (which Mum couldn’t have had in the UK) she has also been given regular doses of an antigen specific peptide vaccine.

Anyway, having been on a bit of a rant for a while I’m starting to feel somewhat disappointed that I rose to the bait in the first place. I guess it just annoys me when people without first hand experience pass comment and potentially deter others from accessing life saving treatment. Thankfully I looked past the sort of crap that people like you spout and went to Germany to meet with, talk to and evaluate what Dr Nolting had to say and then make my own judgement.